Going Mental Video: Negotiating the Minefield of Mental Health Services for Men

Men oftentimes face a dilemma when seeking mental health services.

Whether they’re going through a life crisis like divorce, trying to salvage a marriage that’s falling apart or other personal problems, it can be difficult to find mental health professionals with the same compassion and open mindedness as their female patients. Particularly when counseling men who are having relationship issues, it’s often assumed if the wife or girlfriend is behaving abusively or “emotionally” it’s the man’s fault.

Some practitioners believe that male-ness or mascuilinity is toxic and a form of pathology.

It effectively puts men in trouble in a minefield while they are looking for help. There are many wonderful mental health professionals who aren’t biased against men. However, it can be challenging to find them.

Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD helps individuals work through their relationship and codependency issues via telephone or Skype. She specializes in helping men and women trying to break free of an abusive relationship, cope with the stress of an abusive relationship or heal from an abusive relationship. Coaching individuals through high-conflict divorce and custody cases is also an area of expertise. She combines practical advice, emotional support and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Schedule a Session page for more information.

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This answered so many questions for me, and made a lot of the behavior of the men in my life make sense. I’m also going to try changing how I approach trouble male students in my classes. I pushed a kid hard yesterday, telling him I couldn’t help him if he didn’t talk to me. Next time, I’m going to try focusing his rage on his instrument so he feels like he’s doing something.

Being the father of four boys – often in “trouble” in elementary school – I wonder if an analogous situation in the public schools expectations towards boys being force fit into “traditional” girl behavior (e.g. “be quiet and listen to teacher, sit in your chair, don’t push, show no aggression, etc”) is similar to what is described in this GoingMental video about men being force fit into women’s behavioral health services.

After viewing the video that was my exact thought. This may sound crazy, but I think we lost something when fist fights became the ultimate taboo. In my dad’s day, brawling was a form of exercise. Though it hurts, the conflict is quickly addressed and quickly resolved.

First off, I think we do boys a disservice when we buy into the idea that they are going to be more aggressive and less attentive than girls. Too often, it is used as an excuse to punish them rather than trying to understand what is happening in their lives to cause the behavior. Or indeed, to make school more interesting and engaging for all involved. Boys, girls… all children learn better when they are moving around and doing hands-on things.

It also blinds us to aggressive behavior in women and girls, which, as a child care worker, I have seen plenty of. And boy are they often surprised when I discipline them for it.

I find the whole notion of brawls problematic because where do you draw the line? Jm, In your father’s day, as you said, it was perfectly acceptable for boys to fight each other. It was not acceptable for boys to fight with girls. Boys hitting each other was just boys being boys. A boy hitting a girl was treated as far worse. That played a huge roll in the setting up of the double standards for violent behavior between men and women and a fundamental reason why abusive girlfriends and wives are not taken seriously.

This website is largely dedicated to the proposition that girls and women’s violence should be taken seriously and that men and boys are not automatically the aggressors. I agree with that proposition entirely. But you can’t go bringing back the old assumptions about boys and aggression just because it’s a convenient way to explain issues with the school system.

In my sociology classes we studied brutal rites of passage-scarification, etc. It’s easy for westerners to see that and completely freak out, but many sociologists point out that with a rite of passage, the child’s role in society is crystal clear. One day they are children, afterwards they are adults and expected to act like it.

We allow our children to muddle through years of foggy adolescence, which begs the question, what’s more cruel? Years of anxious struggle or one painful day that is completely unambiguous.

Would I let my child go through scarification? No. But sometimes short physical pain hurts much less than prolonged emotional pain, which brings me to my point about brawling.

The type of brawling I’m referring to is strictly between men. The culture at the time was that brawls we just a part of life and it was better sometimes to just let it play out. The conflict is short and taken care of quickly, and friends on both sides made sure things were fair. (I grew up in a cowboy town.). Not fighting fair was quickly rectified. Afterwards, everyone expected to let the matter drop.

Sometimes a bloody nose hurts less than repressed, seething hatred. That said, the current culture is not currently conducive to this kind of conflict resolution. That’s what I mean when I say sometimes I think we’ve lost something.

Jmorg, love most your comments…but I have to disagree with you on this one. Here is why: In today’s world, its usually not just a brief flurry of punches, and then respect earned. More often than not, its a pummelling and quite often multiple bullies/abusers against one. The punches are just the beginning of an extended-term bullying campaign. Perhaps in rare instances, and/or maybe 60 years ago, exchanging a few punches would’ve settled the issues and then there was a peace/understanding/respect between the parties. Its just almost always not that way anymore. As we see adults beat each other up in court, divorce, finances, etc. the children mimic the adults, see the power plays, and turn it into chronic bullying. That’s what I’ve seen and experienced anyway.

Dr T these videos are fantastic I wish I had known about this site a few years ago .I spent 14 long hard months trying to please a BPD with love and sex addiction also .She was horrible after the first few months of peace being love bombed and killed with flattery and kindness it was I want you ,I need you ,I Love you ..then it was I can’t do this anymore 2-3 of these a week and it was a tornado every single day .She said she had a hard childhood she was from Brazil I thought this was just being a feisty Latin woman boy was I wrong ,it ended with her marring a man 8 weeks after we broke up this was her 4th marriage and 3rd in 5 years …After about 3 years this marriage ended and she was trying to pull me back in basically to make the ex jealous she killes men with the happy new man pics on fb and other sites these pics are daggers to the ex’s heart she killed me many times with these and I wanted no part in doing that to another guy no matter how crazy she said he was …since it was 3 years I was able to be clear headed and stop all the mind games so she quickly found another pawn a much younger guy who like the rest of her men had breakup issues and were people pleasers typically big drinkers also….She also tried to enlist me in to the game as her new Bff often calling me telling me about their sex life and or problems asking me for advice based on our past on how not to be “hurt by him “of course she is the one who uses men and throws them away but when she makes them crazy they end up in rehab or with domestic reports filed on them …anyway she seems to feel its ok to be in a physical relationship with him and still call me to complain about him and have an emotional relationship with me on the phone .I asked her how he would feel about this she said he doesn’t know that she and I had a past other than we have a “Special Friendship” …she broke up with this guy because “he is a liar and a cheater” while she has emotional affairs in her mind with me and that’s perfectly ok plus she lies to him about our past she made this out to be like he had 4 or 5 girlfriends it didn’t add up what it sounds like to me based on her description of the events that all he did was try to set boundaries with her about having time to play baseball and see his guy friend twice a week so she let him go unfortunate this poor guy fell into her games of feeling guilty like he was wrong for wanting his own time and he went nuts drunk dialing and visiting begging for forgiveness of course she ate it up and left him out to dry for a while …She started going to therapy and that’s when she was diagnosed BPD& a Love &Sex addict …Now she wanted me as her new Bff for support this was horrible blowing up my phone day and night suicidal keeping me hostage for hours just to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid …Truth is I felt bad for her she was and is never going to be normal so after being there for her for 5 weeks she then tried to get me back as her “future husband” and come bring her my love .I said no and since being love sober was work and this new guy was a crying fool waiting to be “let back in to play “she quit therapy and stopped taking her depression meds and took the easy way out and finally after weeks of begging took and banging on her door after nights of drowning his sorrows in beer she took the young guy back and now that he’s had 5 weeks in love purgatory to pay for his sins against her he is a perfect puppy dog. Once this happened I decided to do my research on BPD and other PD’s and thank god I never married her.I have since went no contact and its been almost 3 weeks and besides a few phone messages and a text tearing me apart for being such a crappy friend for not answering her calls or texts anymore it seems quiet I won’t fall back I took pity on her before now I know she is pure evil ,I will not be treated like a fool by her I never realized her condition means she will never have empathy or real human emotions besides hate rage and the need to control men …I figure this is a temporary silence once the new guy wakes up if he does. She will be back digging at me and now I have this site and all the info I need to stand strong Thanks 🙂
BTW Of all the other sites out there I love that this one helps men it doesn’t bias its knowledge can be used for both sexes but its freeing to see that its not biased against men some sites there are mostly woman and many call guys psychopaths for not picking up the check for dinner after they gave them sex …so thanks for keeping it informational and welcoming !!!

Dr T. So good to see you “live” and on the air. The conversation hit one home run after another. The first thing I did,after leaving my abusive situation was get to a therapist. It has worked out and alot has to do with what I learned from you!!!
To be truthful, the therapists hardly knew anything about mens issues.
It was me who ended up telling them about everything really and
going out and doing all the work.
What the therapist did though was very important. She kept me on track and gave me confidence that progress was being made.
I knew what I wanted and that did make it easier.
That was pointed out in the video conference and I agree 100%.
There was trust there and I was lucky to be in a situation that allowed flexability and an open expression of new views.
That removed restrictive barriers and allowed for creativity to be integrated into the healing process.
All in all, I have only praise to give to the counsilling service that I was able to go to.
They were the only service available that offered an emergency
walk in time where anyone could go for help.
In fact, they introduced me to Mindfulness treatment. This has really helped me alot and I would recommend that people should give it a try.
Once again, Dr T I thank you so much for all the work (300 plus articles)
you have done.
There is so much more to do.

I discovered Dr. T’s much-needed site about a month ago and have been reading, listening and viewing everything! Such amazing insight and real-life horror stories from the perspective of men. Talk about refreshing and eye-opening! Dr. T rocks 😀

The reason I originally sought information on female abuse of men was because a friend of mine has changed so much since he met a certain female. He seems to be going through the much-ridiculed “midlife” crisis now and I am worried about him. He has shut off all communication to me however. 🙁

Speaking of MIDLIFE CRISIS, it has always puzzled me (as a female myself) how men when they hit their 40’s and 50’s seem to go “nuts” and in lemming-like fashion head to the nearest blonde bimbo, red sports car, Viagra and slippery slope. Where did the wonderful “nice guys” disappear to anyhow? Perhaps we have a bit of an answer here. My theory:
Many men obediently try to appease a NPD, BPD or crazy first wife for years, until they can no longer take it anymore. Not to say all divorces are caused by this of course but what do the newly-divorced guys often do? Why fly into the scheming spider arms of a NEW Crazy before the ink on the papers are even dry! Frying pan to fire. And such a tragedy. 🙁 Mid-life crisis is no joke and neither are these crazy scheming women. Thanks so much for this forum! Glad to be a new member.

Dr T saved me from further years of abuse. I did end up with a much milder case of jumping into the fire, but instead of wasting years, it took a few days to see the light. I knew there was nothing but trouble ahead and bailed out before another disaster took place.
Once you leave, the stuggle does not end. You have changed but the outside world remains the same!!!
That is where I got lucky and found help, therapy that had some
awarness about men being abused.
I continue to go to AlAnon and have found that Mindfulness training
has been a great help.
Once again, I stress to all new memberss to go back to Dr T`s original
web pages and lock yourself in a room for as long as it takes to read and re-read every article that you possible can to open your eyes. The light will begin to shine as she gives you starting points to move from a life of horror to the road towards peace.